


Nothing says ‘I’m sorry’ like gumbo

by killunary



Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: F/M, I just couldn't help myself lol., Lol here I am really and truly dropping a fic on my baby's big day...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-09-27 12:33:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20407819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/killunary/pseuds/killunary
Summary: Perhaps, she was the one exception of these weird ass Auradon Prep princesses.





	Nothing says ‘I’m sorry’ like gumbo

**Author's Note:**

> So seeing as I'm not Chinese and relied on google while looking up male Chinese names, Lonnie saying that Huiliang means 'kind and good' could be an inaccuracy. Anyone who's Chinese is welcome to come forward and correct me should that actually be incorrect.:) To all tuning into this fic, I hope y'all enjoy it.:)

Audrey looks up from her plate and into the eyes of her childhood friend, giggling at having caught him staring.

Ben laughs along with her, smiling sheepishly. “Sorry.” He pauses to stare at her hair for the umpteenth time, the tresses having been blonde yesterday but now dyed a nice shade of black. Smiling, he says, “It’s just that you were a brunette from the day you were in diapers and then went blonde and now—” He raises his hand, using it to gesture toward her hair. “—_this_. It’s a great look, though.”

Audrey smiles sunnily. “Why thank you, Your Majesty.” Her and Ben were early birds, the princess having been out on an early morning stroll through the campus when she’d run into Ben, the royal giggling internally at the memory of Ben coming to a stop before shamelessly gaping at her.

Ben brings his glass of orange juice up to his smiling lips. After getting over the shock of accidentally encountering his best friend in her new hair, his hunger for food is what had him insisting to the girl that they go out to the local diner for breakfast with him paying, of course. “We haven’t come here together in forever.”

Audrey nods. “Yeah.” She’s aware that it’s rude to have her elbows on the table but the princess doesn’t really care at the moment, the beauty saying, “You wanna know what else we haven’t done together in forever? Have dinner at my place.”

Ben chuckles. “Right you are.”

“Then it’s settled,” Audrey says smilingly. “You’re officially coming over to Honeymoon Cottage tomorrow night for dinner.”

The grinning king opens his mouth to reply but he’s interrupted by an unfamiliar voice.

“Audrey!”

Audrey blinks at the sound of that voice, it being more than familiar to her ears. She could only confirm if it was really who she thought it was with her eyes, Audrey raising her head up and staring at a blonde girl she hadn’t seen in quite a while. The princess’s mouth comes apart. Janice…

Janice giggles, approaching the table her old friend and the king of Auradon were sitting at, grinning at Audrey. “I thought that was you. How have you been?”

Ben looks away from new arrival to observe Audrey’s face, the smile on his friend’s face forced.

Audrey laughs awkwardly. Well, with everything that had happened, she could definitely be a lot worse. “I’ve been getting by. What about you?” Seeing Janice again was definitely a surprise. Whether or not she could consider her appearance a nice surprise is something Audrey is still having trouble determining. No, of course it was nice to see Janice! Janice was her friend, after all.

Janice smiles. “I’ve been doing great.” The mole faced girl’s smile falls from her face. “I heard about what happened.” She winces, laughing as she says, “That definitely wasn’t your best moment as princess of Auroria.”

Janice’s insensitivity brings a frown to Ben’s face, his closed mouth moving with a desire to break his silence.

Audrey ignores the twinge in her chest, forcing out a laugh. “Yeah, no kidding.”

Janice sighs, shaking her head. “I mean, first his Royal Majesty here leaves you for another girl and then you tarnish the name of your family. It just really isn’t your year.”

He was officially done with not saying a single word. Clearing his throat, Ben looks at Audrey as he says, “Hey, you ready to get out of here, Audrey? School starts in an hour, after all and I’m sure you’ve got some freshening up you need to do.”

Audrey blinks at Ben, her friend’s eyes usually so kind and gentle but his eyes have hardened over with an anger she feels isn’t directed toward her but someone or something else. Nodding, Audrey says, “Y-Yeah. You’re right. We should get going.”

A disappointed frown appears on Janice’s face. “Awww, and I wanted us to catch up some more.” The girl gasps, grinning, having just thought of the perfect way for her and her old friend to get the other up to date on what’s been going on in their lives. “I’m free tomorrow evening so I’ll come over to the castle for dinner tomorrow, Audrey.”

And here Ben thought he couldn’t dislike Audrey’s friend more than he already does, his jaw clenched as he stared down at the table.

Audrey has to fake another laugh, disappointed that it wouldn’t just be herself, her family, and Ben at the dinner table tomorrow. “Sure, Janice. I’d be glad to have you over for dinner tomorrow.”

Janice grins. “Great! Whelp, toodle loo, Audrey!”

Ben lets out a breath after the aggravating girl makes her departure, smiling sarcastically at his friend sitting across from him as he says, “Well she’s…_a character_.”

Audrey doesn’t have to fake the next laugh she lets out. “Janice can be a bit…much but all in all, she’s a good person.”

The good-natured king’s mouth is in a thin line as he stares wordlessly at the princess. Good person? What kind of good person throws someone’s past in their face like that? Humming, Ben says dryly, “Whelp, at least tomorrow’s dinner will be eventful.”

His dumbass of a roommate had spilled paint all over his jacket so he’s in a foul mood this morning, Huiliang’s mood taking even bigger dive into the burning pits of hell when he sees Li Lonnie standing with prissy in pink by her locker. Li Lonnie, the daughter of the woman he wished with all of his heart had died either at his father’s hands or by some other means because maybe if she had, his father wouldn’t have been so obsessed with enacting revenge on the “hero of China” and would’ve actually given a shit about his mother when she was on her deathbed.

Rarely is Lonnie ever not in a good mood, the smiling girl glancing away from Audrey and right at Huiliang, her smile waning away completely at the sight of the boy glowering at her. She has no classes with her brusque schoolmate so rarely do they interact but during the instances they’ve made eye contact, she’s noticed how the scowl already present on his face deepens and how he looks at her with a fiery sort of hatred. She always goes out of her way to be nice to everyone so she doesn’t know why Huiliang harbors such strong feelings of dislike toward her.

Audrey turns her head to give Huiliang a sweet smile. “Hi, Huiliang.” Like always, she doesn’t take it to heart when she doesn’t get a response. Audrey nearly turns back to begin simultaneously rummaging through her locker and talking to Lonnie again when it occurs to her that something seems a bit off with Huiliang. She jumps when the boy slams his locker shut with a startling amount of aggression, her locker and the rows of other lockers shaking.

Lonnie’s face is impassive as she watches Huiliang stomp off. After a few moments of silence, the girl chuckles, staring down at her shoes, feeling Audrey’s eyes on her. “‘Kind and good’, huh? Perhaps, he’s good deep down but kind?” Lonnie laughs, shaking her head. She looks back up at Audrey, smiling in amusement at the puzzled look on the princess’s face. “‘Kind and good’ is the meaning of Huiliang’s name.”

Audrey nods her head slowly at this new information. “I see.” The upper class girl recalls a certain day it’d been raining and how Huiliang had been kind enough to hold his leather jacket over the two of them as he walked her back to her dorm. Smiling, she says, “I think he’s a lot nicer than he lets on.”

Fuck, could this day get any shittier, the angry boy practically destroying his dorm in search of the card Celia had given him. That card was the one thing he’d received on the Isle of the Lost that he didn’t consider to be utterly useless. To this day, he doesn’t know why he’d let Celia in but he had and a day would never come where he regrets it.

Huiliang growls, stomping out of the dorm and down the hall, everyone in his path quick to get out of his way.

Audrey blinks at the tarot card she’d found resting next to the leg of the library chair she often found Huiliang sitting at. She couldn’t be one hundred percent for certain that it was his but it couldn’t be a coincidence that she’d found it next to the very chair Huiliang always sat in almost as if by habit. As her eyes trace over the item, she wonders why such a thing would be in the boy’s possession. It seemed like something Celia would have on her person seeing as the younger girl was a fortuneteller. The only place the card could’ve been in was his pocket, Audrey suspecting that it had fallen out. She smiles. She had a lanyard in her and Uma’s dorm. If Huiliang wore the card around his neck, rather than walking around with it tucked away in his pocket, he was sure to never lose it again.

Finding the card is the only thing on Huiliang’s mind, the frantic, angry boy sighing in frustration as he scanned the grass of the courtyard for the item.

“Huiliang!”

He ignores the person who had called his name, picking his feet up to take himself someplace else when the person calls out to him again.

“Huiliang!”

Huiliang closes his eyes, hands clenched into angry fists, opening his eyes right as Audrey maneuvered around him, the boy glaring at the princess.

Audrey smiles perkily at the boy, despite his intimidating aura. “Huiliang—”

“Not now, prissy in pink,” Huiliang growled, brushing past the girl.

“But Huiliang—”

His temper reaches its peak, Huiliang whirling around to face the girl. “Leave me the fuck alone! I don’t wanna hear anything about your spoiled, useless, privileged princess shit!” He watches as her eyes gloss over with tears, regret at having unfairly snapped at the girl washing over him.

Audrey bites the inside of her cheek to keep the tears in her eyes from falling, taking out from her purse the card she was sure was the reason why Huiliang had exploded on her just now.

Huiliang blinks at the card Celia had given him that was in the princess’s hand. Fuck…

The girl sniffles, reaching out to take Huiliang’s wrist, placing the card that was hanging from a lanyard in the palm of his hand before turning on her heel and walking off.

Huiliang stares after the princess, feeling like the biggest piece of shit in existence. He sighs, throwing his head back. “Dammit all.”

When someone knocks on the door, it’s the dumbass who gets up to answer it, Huiliang blinking as he watches none other than Uma shove his insufferable roommate to the side before stomping over to his bed, the furious sea witch taking him by the collar of his shirt.

“Uma, stop!”

The calm boy looks away from the pirate captain’s enraged face and at Audrey who was trying to get past Gil and Harry but they were constantly side stepping this way and that to keep the princess from proceeding any nearer to him and Uma. He made eye contact with Gil, Huiliang having initially thought that anger was an emotion someone like Gil simply couldn’t experience.

“What the fuck is your problem!?” Uma spits.

The silent boy gives the beautiful girl in front of him his attention again.

Uma’s eyes are flashing dangerously with unbridled anger as she says, “So because you walk around bein all miserable and shit, you have to make sure everyone else is just as miserable as you!?”

He has no intention of defending himself. This is what he deserved for being such an asshole to Audrey.

Growling, Uma says through gritted teeth, “If you ever make Audrey cry again, I’ll come back and kick your ass.”

Audrey sighs as Uma stomps past her and the two boys that had been blocking her path, Gil and Harry turning to follow their captain. Audrey is looking and sounding every bit of apologetic as she says, “Huiliang, I’m so sorry.”

When she’s gone, he feels worse than before.

Sometimes Lonnie feels up for a midnight snack, the Swords and Shields team captain making her way to the school kitchen to bake herself a batch of cookies whenever that urge rears its head. She’d be in the kitchen rolling cookie dough between her palms while humming a song if it weren’t for Huiliang’s presence in the kitchen, the girl having been standing with her back pressed against the wall while listening to him shuffle around in the kitchen for she doesn’t know how long. She should just turn back around and simply go a night without a midnight snack, Lonnie about to do just that when someone makes their presence known.

“Boo!”

Lonnie jumps, turning her head to glare at a smirking Jay. She swats at her friend’s arm.

The laughing boy, moves to poke his head into the kitchen, eyebrows raising when he saw the back of Huiliang. Pulling himself back to where he was standing next to Lonnie, their shoulders brushing, the muscular boy whispers, “What the hell is he doing in there so late at night?”

Lonnie shrugs. “Ya got me.” Lonnie pouts. “I wish he’d leave, though so I can bake some cookies.”

Jay furrows his eyebrows, opening his mouth to ask a question he’s afraid to hear the answer to. “Wait, do you like him?”

Lonnie scoffs, giving the taller boy a look. “No! Why would I like someone so cold!?”

He’s simmering internally with relief, nodding his head. He smiles, playfully nudging her. “Relax, captain. It was just a question.” He lets silence befall them for only a few moments, staring at the opposite wall as he says, “So…who _do_ you like then?”

Lonnie makes for sure to keep her face turned away from him so he doesn’t see her red cheeks. “Hm, just some jerk.”

Jay frowns. “Some jerk? You should be into a guy that’s nicer.”

Lonnie giggles, smiling. “When I say “jerk”, I don’t mean it in the way it’s usually said. He’s actually a guy with a very good heart.”

Jay looks at the girl, wishing she were looking at him so he could see her pretty face. “Well, good. You deserve a good guy.”

Audrey’s back is to him, a book in the pretty princess’s lap as she sits on the edge of the fountain in the courtyard. Huiliang sighs, a container of gumbo in his hands. It’d taken a few tries to get the gumbo right and while it was in no way as delicious as Tiana’s, he hopes Audrey will like it anyway. He’s frustrated at the frantic beating of his heart as he approaches the princess, having never felt this way because of another person before.

The clearing of someone’s throat is what makes Audrey glance up from her book, the beauty looking over her shoulder and up at Huiliang’s handsome face. She smiles at him in greeting. “Hi there, Huiliang.”

For some reason, he can’t look her in the eye, the isle boy thrusting the container of food out in front of Audrey’s face.

Audrey’s confused as she takes the container, looking between it and Huiliang who refused to look at her for some reason.

“I was a real piece of shit to you yesterday,” Huiliang says, voice soft and remorseful. “I’m sorry.”

Audrey blinks up at him, closing her open mouth, smiling at the handsome boy. “I accept your apology, Huiliang.”

Fuck, why’s he feel so damn awkward? He rubs the back of his neck. “That’s gumbo in the container. I mean, it’s in no way Tiana’s amazing gumbo but I don’t think it’ll give you food poisoning or anything.”

Audrey giggles. Her heart stutters when Huiliang suddenly looks at her, the look not all brief, though, Audrey flushing when she realized that Huiliang was outright staring at her. Maybe she had something on her face.

Huiliang curses under his breath, quickly averting his eyes, kicking himself for staring at the princess like some creep. “Sorry. It’s just…your hair.”

Audrey bites her lip nervously, fearing that he was about to say that he didn’t like it.

Huiliang makes eye contact with the beautiful girl again. “I like it.”

Audrey feels a burst of butterflies in her chest, beaming at the boy. “Thank you, Huiliang.”

**Author's Note:**

> To all who made it to the end of the fic, I hope y'all enjoyed it.:) Feedback of any kind is very much appreciated.:)


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